New DVD Site Kicks Off Ad Campaigns

Infinity Resources Inc. has started digging into a $150,000-plus promotions budget for its new DVD retail site, www.deepdiscountdvd.com.

Promotions under way include banner ads at E! Online, New York, and promos in e-mail newsletters owned by DVD affinity sites such as DVDReview.com, Orange County, CA, and DVDTalk.com, Portland, OR.

The banners and e-mail promos for the site, which opened Feb. 1, are scheduled to run into the spring. The ads will be followed by national radio and newspaper print ads slated to begin next month.

David Barker, director of Internet marketing for Infinity, said his company won't spend a lot of cash on e-mail after experiencing diminishing returns from such campaigns in other divisions.

"Some of the lists are not as fine-tuned as we hoped they'd be," Barker said. "We are going to be more selective with our lists, and basically use e-mail to re-market to our repeat customers more than anything else."

The company wouldn't disclose expectations on returns for the promotions.

DeepDiscountDvd.com comes on the heels of Infinity's October acquisition of Playboy Enterprises' 110,000-square-foot fulfillment center in Itasca, IL. The facility features an 150-seat call center.

As part of that deal, Infinity also gained Playboy's video retail division, Critics Choice Video, which includes a 3-year-old Web site and a 14-year-old catalog featuring VHS tapes of Hollywood classics and hard-to-find films.

Dennis Abbound, CEO of Infinity, said the backend capabilities that his firm gained in the Playboy deal would support his standalone DVD site through the current Internet downturn.

"The experience and strength of our mail order business will allow us to establish the (site) as a resource for DVD buyers in this emerging market," he said.

Abbound said analysts have predicted that 180 million DVDs will be sold this year and as many as 550 million by 2005.